Approximately 250,000 children are living with HIV in Tanzania and 1.3 million children have been orphaned by AIDS. AIDS is a leading cause of death among young people, particularly adolescent girls and young women (AGYW). A lack of human resources in the health and social welfare sectors has made it difficult to provide adequate services to people affected by the epidemic; Tanzania has only 44% of the required human resources for health.

Through the Tanzania Community Health and Social Welfare Systems Strengthening Program (CHSSP), JSI and partners works with the government of Tanzania to strengthen the country’s health and social welfare system and ensure there are human resources to provide services at the community level in 84 districts. CHSSP helps to control Tanzania’s HIV epidemic by expanding social services to vulnerable populations, with a special focus on AGYW, most vulnerable children (MVC), and people living with HIV (PLHIV). The project's work is guided by the government of Tanzania and PEPFAR 3.0 priorities in accordance with the UNAIDS Fast Track Strategy.

CHSSP’s objectives are:

1: Higher performing human resources for community health and social welfare services (able to support AGYW, MVC, and PLHIV to know their status, improve retention and adherence, and achieve viral suppression)

2: More functional, better coordinated community structures and systems to better serve priority and key populations

RESULTSTo date, CHSSP has provided scholarships to 229 community health workers and training for more than 3,750 social welfare case workers. By October 2019, CHSSP will train an additional 2,840 lead case workers and supervisors and 32,069 community case workers. These intensive trainings will result in Tanzania having one trained case worker for every 20 most vulnerable children in the country, significantly closing the human resources gap. Case workers are trained to link and refer MVC and their households to health and social welfare services. CHSSP also will strengthen 420 ward- and 2,100 village-level Multi-sectoral AIDS Committees and MVC Committees to support referrals, linkages, and adherence to treatment for PLHIV and MVC and their households in 84 councils.

CHSSP worked with the government to update national HIV policies and guidelines. CHSSP then ensured that district and community-level structures such as Multi-Sectoral AIDS Committees, MVC Committees, PLHIV clusters, and CSOs understand how to implement the policies and guidelines at each level of the health and social welfare system.